How important is it to integrate marketing tactics?
It can be crucial. Integrated marketing tactics that convey the same message across different channels is a powerful enough strategy to directly reduce marketing costs and increase sales.
It can be crucial. Integrated marketing tactics that convey the same message across different channels is a powerful enough strategy to directly reduce marketing costs and increase sales.
Background
This 90-bed hotel and activity centre is in a area of Sweden that is very popular with Chinese tourists and its main season is from autumn to spring, through the winter. Guests stay for the landscape, night sky and snow-based activities.
The industry
European hotels with specialist activities are seeing huge growth in tourists from China as a rapidly increasing middle class there becomes able to afford to travel and wants to see the sights outside of China. As hotels reimagine their services in 2020, lifetime experiences will survive better than breakfast buffets.
The problem
When we met the client, the main issue was that, although the business operated a full range of activities, many guests didn't know that until they arrived and therefore had booked their activities with another provider.
Additional challenges included:
Additional challenges included:
- There was no organised marketing.
- Booking of activities on site, rather than in advance, made them difficult and costly to run.
- The graphics were done as a favour by a local printing company.
- The summer was extremely quiet so they needed more guests then.
- Information was needed in multiple languages.
- The existing website didn’t work properly and was very costly to update.
- One large target group was in mainland China where the website and booking system was not available.
How we jumped in
A guest staying at another hotel in the area took part in an activity organised by the client. They suggested to the client that they contact us for help promoting the activities and so they came to Stockholm to meet us. A happy client referral!
The client’s goals for us
Initially, the client asked us to deliver Content Marketing in the form of ongoing, regular blog and social media posts. Subsequently, we took on responsibility for delivering all the marketing strategy and tactics for the global marketing of the hotel.
The client's trust in us gave us the freedom to solve the problems in efficient and effective way. By working on the entire marketing effort, we could integrate campaigns and channels, improving the effectiveness of them and keeping costs as low as possible.
What we did to help them
- We began with a full website analysis to see where their potential market base was, ow they accessed the informtion, what they looked at and crucial elements like which language their computer or phone system was in, to tell us the language they most likely would want booking information in.
- The client chose blog posts as a need and we worked this into a full content marketing strategy, including the blog, social media portals and email marketing.
- While potential Chinese guests living outside mainland China could already access the .com website and receive the existing marketing, the biggest targat market group were in China and they couldn't. We created an entire strategy for reaching and marketing to the immense travel-hungry Chinese middle class.
- People tend to buy - and book - in their main language. We created a strategy to reach potential guests in the five main languages we indentified as main languages of guests and of website visitors.
- To address the key problem of guests' lack of awareness of the activities, we created an integrated email and content marketing strategy that ensured awareness of activities shot up, especially once guests had booked the accommodation.
- We built a .cn website in mainland China and developed Chinese social media marketing and PR.
- We redeveloped and produced all the marketing materials, including posters, flyers and brochures. The hotel is full of materials showcasing the activities available and encouraging guests to explore the spectacular scenery.
- We replaced the existing external SEO provider and developed effective on- and off-page SEO.
- We rebuilt the .com website and extended it substaintially to cover five languages. We handled all the translations using expert, mother-tongue translators to properly localise the contant - making it make sense to the reader and working effectively to market the hotel to them.
What the project achieved
The client needed a large increase in activity bookings and more hotel guests during the summer. The work we did achieved both these goals.
We also worked to make the hotel's marketing more sustainable, enabling them to repeatidly and consistently reach a much bigger target audience.
We also worked to make the hotel's marketing more sustainable, enabling them to repeatidly and consistently reach a much bigger target audience.
